


True Contingency

by The_Client



Series: Scenes from an Alternate Episode IX (writing order) [6]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Mental Health Issues, Rey is Not a Palpatine, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, background first order officers and knights of ren, keri russell is allegiant general pryde
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:33:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23066293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Client/pseuds/The_Client
Summary: An ancient evil returns to torment the new Supreme Leader of the First Order. All works in this series can be read independently, or in any order, though this one follows closely onNot Alone (Just for Tonight).Content warning: mental health issues; implied/referenced abuse; references Leia’s peaceful, off-screen death (prior to the beginning of the story)***“One such as yourself could be of great use to me, both as an executor of my will in the galaxy I can no longer travel, and as a companion in my exploration of the limits of power.”“And if I’m not interested?”(Fragmented sense-impressions, deliberately dispensed: clones, captives, bodies emptied of minds. Blood drained and tested for what had once been believed to be the carrier of the Force, of the soul. The echoes of hideous torment knock the brash courage right out of him, leave him shaking, suffocating again.)“I am still experimenting, seeking to extend my reign into eternity as is right and proper. I believe you can help me, one way or another.” A pause. “And I’m aware that you yourself had help, conquering your last master.”
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Scenes from an Alternate Episode IX (writing order) [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1600099
Kudos: 5





	True Contingency

“Supreme Leader.”

He doesn't know how long it takes him to recognize the sound as a voice, the title as his own. (The latter might as well be. He doesn’t know what else to call himself, none of the names fit anymore.)

“Lord Ren. Sir.”

He's looking at a very young officer, speaking from much farther away than convenience and protocol should dictate. The arrangements he’d made for his own solitude are still in effect; surely her brain-stem is shrieking at her to _run_ , but she clenches her jaw, tries to come closer. _This one deserves a promotion,_ he thinks inanely.

(He’d been on the bridge of the _Steadfast_ when the hole had opened in existence. _General Organa is dead,_ he’d said conversationally to the officer standing nearest. Then he’d walked away, revealing nothing, save perhaps in a slight quickening of his stride. But he’d let his mood leak into the Force, so everyone on the nearby observation deck found themselves with an intense desire to be elsewhere.

He must have stood for hours, leaning against the transparisteel wall, not seeing the stars beyond. Then _that_ had happened. Then another unknown, missing span of time. And now this earnest young person. (When had he stopped being young? Or earnest?))

“Speak.” His voice is hoarse from disuse. And thirst. How long has he stood here, altogether?

Her posture relaxes infinitesimally in relief. “Sir. High Command requests your presence in the primary docking bay. I'll brief you along the way.”

***

The shuttle is just settling when he enters the hangar. A detachment of troopers trains a variety of weapons on the invading organism. Behind them, officers gossip in clumps, their ostentatiously indignant tones not disguising – at least not from him – their anxiety. Beyond the closing hangar doors can be glimpsed a sliver of the not-distant-enough shape, that’s displayed in its entirety on a wall-mounted viewscreen: a Star Destroyer, but subtly, naggingly different in design than either the vessels of the Order or those in the history books. Mounted to its ventral side is a cannon reminiscent of the one used on Crait, though of course larger in scale. The engineers among the officers eye it with a mixture of alarm and admiration, jealousy, almost lust.

The shuttle is also familiar-yet-not, though decidedly more toward the _not_ side of the continuum than the Destroyer: the old Lambda design, far advanced down a more baroque, less predatory path than the one that led to the Order's Upsilon. From it issues a petite woman perhaps a decade his senior, light-skinned and delicate-featured, serene in the face of the many weapons pointed at her, blond hair just barely regulation-contained at the base of her officer’s cap. The uniform that accentuates her perfect posture is subtly _different_ in its cut, its insignia unfamiliar to him – to the officers too, judging by the fresh wave of affronted trepidation they exude. She's curiously blank in the Force – not sensitive, but seemingly trained to shield herself from casual intrusion. He surely could read her, but not without more concentration than he wants to divert from the rest of the situation.

(He’s not thinking: not without more concentration than he’s capable of, right now, full stop. He’s _not_.)

A humanoid figure accompanies her. It takes him a ridiculously long time to identify it as a droid, considering its lack of living-thing-ness in the Force and the fact that its head is a featureless, darkly translucent bulb. After another delay he recognizes its shape from histories of the Empire’s fall, though this one is robed in black, not red. It is incredibly unsettling to look upon.

Then, surrounding the officer and the droid from behind – the Knights.

He’d sent them away – had managed to send them away, on one mission or another, much of the time, since well before Starkiller. Their latest mission had nothing to do with Death Star tech-enabled Star Destroyers or ghoulish droids or officer uniforms that looked like they came from another, just-slightly-different version of the galaxy. Could not have, since neither he nor – to his knowledge – they had known such things existed.

“What is the meaning of this?” He addresses the Knights, outwardly imperious, though he feels the impostor and fears they can sense it. He’s not afraid of them, exactly, though over the years he’s come to know the heartless truth of what his idiotic younger self had dared to hope were collegial, even friendly relationships. He still spars with them, between missions; knows he can still take them individually and thinks he could take them together, if it came to it. None of them has yet managed to craft a lightsaber.

But surely this situation, whatever it is, won’t come down to hand-to-hand combat.

“They have been requisitioned by their true Master,” says the woman, still standing saber-straight, yet subtly relaxed – as if she believes herself untouchable, or doesn’t care about her own fate. There’s something of hypnosis, of the cultist, about her voice and eyes. “I am Allegiant General Nadejda Pryde. I bring greetings from Exogol, the True Contingency, and Emperor Palpatine.”

Someone guffaws. Not General Hux, who has been rather more subdued since the Supremacy, and is _quietly_ seething with the affront of being upstaged, and the threat to his ever-evolving coup plans (he’s never been confident enough in their viability for the Supreme Leader to bother learning the details). It’s one of the old men, the ex-Imperials, who scoffs aloud. He reads the others easily enough: scorn and outrage from those who think a joke is being played at their expense; anxiety ranging to near-panic from those who don’t. Here and there a thread of – delight? Hope?

The Allegiant General gestures presentationally to the sentinel droid. Its blank bulbous face takes on features: an interior projection of a familiar visage. Not the kindly old man of the Republic era, that had remained the face of much Imperial propaganda until its downfall, but the gruesome countenance displayed in the New Republic’s unsympathetic histories.

“Greetings indeed, my loyal subjects. I am surprised to be meeting you so soon. Lord Snoke’s wealth and wisdom served me well, as those of the Count of Serenno once did, and his recent demise was … somewhat unexpected. However, it seems it is time for you to know the true purpose of all you have built.”

 _A recording, a simulation,_ the most puffed-up of the officers mutter to themselves or – in a few brave instances – one another. But what he feels in the Force is not the emptiness of a recording, nor even the pseudo-intelligence of a droid. He remembers tales of his grandfather asphyxiating officers on distant ships. He finds he can hardly breathe himself.

“Of course I understand your misgivings,” the voice continues. “Fear not. My Allegiant General has prepared a demonstration.”

***

The Order has kept a rather listless watch on Crait, the Resistance having sensibly never dared to return, and the salty surface offering few resources of use in salvaging the hulk of the Supremacy. All nearby Order vessels have withdrawn to a specified distance by the time the _Steadfast_ and the Allegiant General's _Derriphan_ emerge from hyperspace.

The officers observe the planet’s destruction in a stew of two parts terror, two parts indignation, and one part – admiration? Ecstasy?

As the remnants of the explosion collapse in upon themselves, the face in the sentinel droid speaks again.

“I am sure you all have much to discuss. I will speak privately with the Supreme Leader now.”

The mocking emphasis on the title is subtle enough that he might be imagining it.

A terrified junior officer – the same one as before? he can’t remember – conducts him and the droid down a nearby corridor, ominously trailed by the Knights. The Allegiant General accompanies the senior officers in another direction, amid a miasma of _what is the meaning of this, unbelievable, unacceptable_ and _it can’t be him_ and _so what if it isn’t, whoever it is can blow us all into oblivion_ and _surely it’s a bluff, they can’t have an entire fleet of such ships_ and – sadly prominent – _maybe this situation is an opportunity for me_. Hux, the mind most familiar and easiest to pick out of the morass, is simply incensed. Hux, on his side, for once, insofar as it's the side that views the situation with escalating horror.

The junior officer palms open a small conference room and gestures them within. The Knights wait outside the closing door.

Once he’s alone with the droid, the presence he’d felt multiplies exponentially. He can feel himself breathing, but the air seems to lack oxygen to sustain him; sparks dance along every nerve from within, as when his old master summoned the lightning; intense aches blossom along the scars in his soft tissue and the lines of healed fractures in his bones. Yet when the voice speaks, it is conversational, almost genial.

“You did surprise me, oh scion of my favorite apprentice.”

“What do you want from me?” He’s always had this going for him, or against him: when he’s terrified enough, anguished enough, those base, weak emotions somehow transubstantiate into outrage, and a sort of reckless courage. “Did you wait for my mother to die to make yourself known? Were you afraid of her?”

The presence is amused.

“Leia Organa was no threat to me. But I admit my timing in approaching you is … not fully coincidental.

“As for what I want from you: that is something for us to discuss, and to contemplate.

“You may know I do not fully subscribe to the old ways of the Sith, but nor have I fully abandoned them. My interest in mentoring the worthy has never flagged.

“From the experiment that was once Anakin Skywalker I learned that great power can arise from suffering. But events spiraled beyond my control, ultimately crippling him in mind as well as body, limiting his potential. Lord Snoke was of great use to me in conducting a more deliberate trial, even if his … _proclivities_ ultimately got the best of him, left him too distracted by his delight in your pain to notice he was no longer in control. I admit the results are quite impressive.

“The body I inhabit survived, barely, via the Sith secrets that my own master uncovered and that I continued to develop after his unfortunate passage. It survives still, on Exogol, far beyond the borders of known space. But it will not last forever. So I continue to contemplate all possibilities, all _contingencies_.

“One such as yourself could be of great use to me, both as an executor of my will in the galaxy I can no longer travel, and as a companion in my exploration of the limits of power.”

“And as your heir?” he scoffs.

The holoprojection laughs hideously.

“I do not plan to need one. But many are the twists and turns of destiny. If ever you manage to replace me in the manner of the Sith, I can hardly begrudge it.”

“And if I’m not interested?”

(Fragmented sense-impressions, deliberately dispensed: clones, captives, bodies emptied of minds. Blood drained and tested for what had once been believed to be the carrier of the Force, of the soul. The echoes of hideous torment knock the brash courage right out of him, leave him shaking, suffocating again.)

“I am still experimenting, seeking to extend my reign into eternity as is right and proper. I believe you can help me, one way or another.” A pause. “And I’m aware that you yourself had help, conquering your last master.”

He’s unprepared for the depth of horror that rises in him, setting him to babbling before he can consider his words. “She doesn’t matter. The Resistance is all but extinct. Skywalker’s dead. She’ll never learn enough to be a threat to you.”

“Perhaps not. But I’m sure I could find a way to make her useful.” Another studied pause. “It would be difficult to bend her to my will, though, given her unfortunate affinity for the Light. If you serve me willingly – if indeed she refrains from threatening me – leaving her intact as your incentive and reward _might_ prove the better bargain for me.

“Your officers” – again the slightest, mocking emphasis on the word _your_ – “must have their foolish nattering. It will be easier for everyone, including myself, if they talk themselves into believing the decision is theirs. But there is only one possible outcome. The officers and troops of the Order – most admirably trained, I must admit – will staff my planet-killer fleet, and devote themselves to imposing my will upon the galaxy.

“Think on all else I have said. If you would find me, look in my last abode.”

The image on the head of the droid flickers out.

***

He finds himself on the observation deck again, though he doesn’t remember walking there. Leaning again against the wall-sized viewport, now festooned with the ruins of Crait.

(Before, he’d pressed himself against the cool transparisteel, waiting for the absence to _normalize_ , to become an _ignorable_ distraction. Like breathing through the pain, coming to the place where he could pick himself up again, when his old master mortified his body, teaching him to _endure_. He wasn’t sure what he felt was grief, exactly – though he’d discovered, during that madness after D’Qar, that he couldn’t will his mother dead. More a dismal realization that he’d always assumed, secretly even from himself, that she’d be waiting. That he’d eventually – what? Take his vengeance on her? Throw himself at her feet?

Then the whirring had started in his ears, and _she’d_ been there. Not his mother. _Her._ They’d talked, for the first time since Crait.

Then she’d been _there_. Had dropped a red rag at his feet, unnoticed; it still rested, fully substantial, in an inner pocket of his clothes. Had left _traces of her blood_ on the floor, where she’d skinned her palms, tripping and falling across the kriffing galaxy.

The Supreme Leader should have captured her, or followed her back to wherever the last of the Resistance was hiding. But all he’d wanted to do, all he could do, was urge her back where she’d come from, to safety.

He wonders if there's such a thing as safety now.)

**Author's Note:**

> I enjoyed Richard E. Grant's performance in the film, but when Keri Russell's casting was first announced without character details, I imagined her as an officer. Her character's first name is inspired by her character on _The Americans._


End file.
